Growth

The latest in Peccadillo’s critically acclaimed series – now established as a leading showcase for new and emerging queefilm-makingng talent from around the world – features a fresh and exciting selection of the very best contemporary gay short films. Each self-contained drama in this diverse and thoughtfully curated collection offers fascinating and insightful new perspectives on the gay experience – sensual, affecting, sometimes provocative and always entertaining. The 8 short films are: Have We Met Before? (2019); The Act (2020); First Position. (2019); Winter [Invierno] (2021); The Suit Weareth the Man (2020); Infinite While It Lasts [Infinito Enquanto Dure] (2019); Melon Grab (2017); Thrive (2019).

Three sketches each from a different director: (1) a dancer who is attracted to lesbians; (2) a call girl who is accosted by a cruel man; (3) a male transvestite - the hentai of the title - exposed at a sunny place.

Philip and Bastian are lovers. Philip has taken the responsibility to help his older brother’s family in the slums. However, when Bastian pursues painting and can no longer provide for Philip, Philip resorts to hustling in order to help his brother’s family. When Bastian catches Philip being picked up by a gay man in a car, he decides to keep everything inside. Can Philip and Bastian’s love prevail despite the odds?

A ghostly love story unfolds as two men look for answers where ocean meets sky and city meets wild in Rockaway Beach, NY.

After the PTA of a conservative high school in Indiana bans same-sex couples from attending the annual prom, a gang of flamboyant Broadway stars try to boost their image by showing up to support two lesbian students.

A working class teenager comes of age in 1910s rural Sweden, moving through a series of jobs and romances that gradually shape his future.

A sensitive girl is sent to an all-girls boarding school and develops a romantic attachment to one of her teachers.

In 2027, in a chaotic world in which humans can no longer procreate, a former activist agrees to help transport a miraculously pregnant woman to a sanctuary at sea, where her child's birth may help scientists save the future of humankind.

In the Yorkshire countryside, working-class tomboy Mona meets the exotic, pampered Tamsin. To seal their friendship, Mona introduces Tamsin to her born-again Christian brother and helps her spy on her adulterous father. Bound together by their secrets, the two girls see their friendship deepen and enter into dangerous waters.

Sean is taken to a motel and is given a prostitute for his 18th birthday by his father. He must sleep with her to "fix" his questionable homosexuality. "Pretty Boy" is a coming of age story of a young bullied teen, Sean, struggling with his sexuality and the hardships of high school. After his father finds some questionable magazines in his room, this devout Christian will go to any lengths to get his son to find the light and "perform" the way a man should. Sean is introduced to Katie, a prostitute that understands the stigmas of modern society and helps him see the true light that is within him.

Months after they broke up, Gunnar receives a strange phone call from his ex-boyfriend, Einar. He sounds distraught, like he's about to do something terrible to himself. Gunnar drives up to the secluded cabin where Einar is holed up and soon discovers that there's more going on than he imagined. As the two men come to terms with their broken relationship, some other person seems to be lurking outside the cabin, wanting to get in.

In 1949, composer Roman Strauss is executed for the murder of his wife. In 1990s Los Angeles, a detective comes across a mute amnesiac woman who is somehow linked to the Strauss murder.

The Gamblers

Over the course of three days Ross, a college dropout addicted to crystal-meth, encounters a variety of oddball folks - including a stripper named Nikki and her boyfriend, the local meth producer, The Cook - but all he really wants to do is hook up with his old girlfriend, Amy.

The film is an adaptation of the novel Samar Habib by Ismåeel Walieddin. author of Female Homosexuality in the Middle East: Histories and Representations. The main character, Ahmad, leaves rural eastern Egypt for the city hoping to become economically self-sufficient, gets an apartment for his parents, and obtains a law degree. He and his family are refugees from a town occupied by the Israeli army, Ismaåilia. Ali, the owner of the Malatily Bathhouse, offers to let him stay there for free. Ahmad encounters several characters there, including Naåeema, a prostitute who he becomes obsessed with, and Raouf, a homosexual man.

Waris Hussein’s acclaimed drama is based on the autobiography of Firdaus Kanga, who stars in the lead role of Brit, a young man born with brittle bone disease, which causes him to have never grown beyond four feet tall. The film follows his sexual awakening whilst his family simultaneously disintegrates all around him. An extremely moving drama confronting stereotypes around disability, sexuality and race, featuring a powerhouse performance from Kanga.

Aitana, Pierrick, Rita and Jorge are all in their twenties and all look for ways to make their nights in the city of Madrid a little less lonely. Aitana is a sweet girl trapped in a men’s body; Pierrick is a cute French gay; Rita doesn't much care about her partner, Carolina, and walks through life with no expectations; Jorge is trapped in a relationship with no future: the one he has with Maria. Set against a background of drugs, sex, multiple partners and differing sexualities, Longing Nights follows the individual stories of these young people. A candid portrait of four relationships highly loaded with eroticism from beginning to end. Four stories told without no borders between fiction and reality.

Due to her father’s death, Marie returns to the countryside after 15 years. Her childhood friend, Estêvão, is leaving with her on a trip to Crato, her father’s hometown.

This coming-of-age drama deals with a young man, realizing who he really is and which things he will never do...

Football star Charlie has the world at her feet. With a top club desperate to sign her, her future is seemingly mapped out. But the teenager sees only a nightmare. Raised as a boy, Charlie is torn between wanting to live up to her father's expectations and shedding this ill fitting skin.